Pre-holiday musings

(1) Is it me or is Firefox 1.5 not ready for prime time? Memory usage spikes, random shutdowns, and of course the obligatory extension-busting. Still the best by far, but couldn’t it be, um, better?

(2) There will be one extra second in 2005, owing to a miniscule slowdown in the Earth’s rotation. Is it time to decouple our timekeeping from geophysics and just use our atomic clocks? And what are you planning to do with the extra time?

(3) There are seven (colored) lines on the Chicago L transit system. There are seven notes in major, minor, and modal musical scales. There are 144 stations currently in operation, a number easily divisible by the 12 tones of the Western chromatic scale. If this isn’t begging for some kind of orchestral arrangement where actual train cars passing through stations over time trigger notes, then I don’t know what is. See also: Projects 2006.

(4) I’m headed to Istanbul early next year. Suggestions on what to see, what to eat, where to smoke the hookah?

Mr. Romer’s answer is to do with this moment what Burning Man does every summer: Stake out the street grid; separate public from private space; and leave room for what’s to come. Then let the free market take over."

Cross-posted at Medium. Years ago, when I was just moving into the world of urban technology, I stumbled upon the urban “walkshop” format developed by Adam Greenfield and Nurri Kim (refined and expanded by Mayo Nissen). These walking tours were collaborative, lightly-structured investigations of surveillance and communications machinery sprinkled throughout various cities. Though these walkshops […]

Cross-posted at Medium. CityFi partners John Tolva and Story Bellows frequently find themselves on the frontier of urban change. Their facilitation of major projects often convenes public-private stakeholders, utilizes new models of technology and innovation, and drives policy development, all with the goal of making our cities more livable, vibrant and economically competitive. Currently, this […]